Peeps – Mystery Flavor

Its that time of year again.  Where many people get ready to put on their Sunday best, hunt for eggs, and celebrate Easter with friends and family.  Christians will be celebrating the resurrection, however for some of us, we also celebrate the other reason for the season – Peeps.

I don’t think there could be a more controversial holiday treat than these sugar covered marshmallow birds (or bunnies if you’re a heretic). Peeps have a cult following, prompting eating contests, dessert recipes, Peep art, even a documentary.  However, despite it’s celebrated status, you wouldn’t have to go far to find that for every Peep lover, is a Peep hater.  Maybe its the sickening amount of sugar, or the gritty texture of the crystalized sugar coating, maybe its because they hate Jesus and the Easter/Peep relationship is just too triggering for them.  I’m not one to answer that question – I’ve been known to enjoy my fair share of Peeps.

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When my wife and I were looking for Easter decorations at Walmart (why is it that Walmart tends to be such a great source for this blog?) we came across this year’s iteration of Peep’s Mystery Flavors.  Coming in 3 different packages, each is designated with it’s own mysterious flavor that will be revealed later this season.  Now, being one of those people that will actually eat Peeps intentionally, I didn’t see this as much of a shitty review opportunity – however for those 99 out of 100 of you who absolutely detest them, I thought I’d do my best to see things from your perspective and give them the opportunity to shine in all their shitty glory.

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First up was the purple package, the first of the 3 mystery flavors.. Each package contains 10 peeps.  As with most farm poultry, these are crammed in rows, and covered in plastic.  One would wonder where we can purchase the free range, organic version?

Typically peeps are covered in a solid color, with their dotted eyes, however these mystery peeps are white and covered in “fun” specs of color to match their mystery packaging.  The colors do not pertain to their actual flavor.

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The peep, despite its non-traditional color and markings, felt like any other peep.  It had a rough crystalized sugar outside, and maintained it’s marshmallowy squishiness.  Biting into the Peep, I could taste the distinct sugary sweet flavor of the peep, but with an added level of sickly sweetness on top of it. It took me a moment to discern between the two different diabetes inducing flavors in my mouth, but I could confidently say that the mystery flavor of package #1 was Maple Syrup.

But the fun didn’t stop there… Despite finishing the peep, the maple syrup flavor lingered around in my mouth for a bit.  And this was not like the delicious maple syrup with pancake flavor… This was the “picked up the off brand maple syrup from the clearance bin right next to the sun facing window on a 115 degree day” syrup flavor.

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Next up is flavor #2 in the orange package.

These chicks were covered in orange and red color specs.  This flavor was much harder to discern.  It contained strong fruity flavor and slight citrusy notes, with just a slight bit of tartness.  I may have considered it to be some type of fruit punch, or possibly orange flavor.  Again, the overtly obvious flavor of sugar was there, and that may have made it hard to determine exactly what flavor these were.

Finally is the third of three mystery flavors.  These were covered in green and yellow specs.


This particular one had a sad, droopy eye.  And despite it’s looks, tasted much more citrusy, a little sour, and absolutely sweet.  Potentially this could have been a lemon/lime flavor, or maybe even a sour grape.  Lemon/lime would be a little too on the nose.  I’d hope they would want the flavor a little more mysterious than that.

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Summary

It's interesting to rate something that I enjoy as shitty... but for all you Peep haters out there, I'm gonna do it. I'll make the sacrifice.

Overall I'm in the middle on execution... I think the mystery was there, but the flavor balance was hard to make the mystery solvable on the 2nd and 3rd flavors. So I gave it a 3.

Appearance - what do you expect? They look like marshmallow peeps. I don't really know if they could get them to look any better than they already do.

Taste - The sugar just overwhelms everything here, blocking out some of the other flavors that might make the mystery solving a little easier. If they dialed down the sweetness a bit, I think the flavor would be much better for these particular peeps!

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